Kodak-Branded Bitcoin Mining Scheme Collapses

Published on July 18, 2018

The Kodak-branded bitcoin mining rigs unveiled at the CES technology trade show this year will no longer be available to mine for customers. Amid scam accusations, the company behind the Kodak Kashminer crypto mining scheme has reportedly confirmed the plan has collapsed, citing intervention by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Kodak-Branded Mining Rig is No More

Kodak Kashminer on display at CES.

A Kodak-branded mining rig was on display on Kodak’s official stand at the CES technology trade show in Las Vegas in January. The Kodak Kashminer is a product of Spotlite USA, one of many companies that license the Kodak brand to put on its own products. The miner was unveiled at the same time as Kodakcoin, as news.Bitcoin.com previously reported.

According to Spotlite’s CEO, Halston Mikail, the company planned “to install hundreds of the devices at the Kodak headquarters in Rochester, New York, to take advantage of cheap electricity offered by an on-site power plant,” the BBC reported. He also claimed that “80 devices were already in operation.”

However, Kodak told the news outlet that “the venture was never officially licensed and that no devices had ever been installed.” While Spotlite is licensed to use the Kodak brand for LED lighting products, it is not licensed to use the brand for mining rigs. A company spokesman was quoted explaining:

While you saw units at CES from our licensee Spotlite, the Kashminer is not a Kodak brand licensed product. Units were not installed at our headquarters.

Change of Plans

The licensee planned to rent out the machines for an up-front fee and let customers “keep a cut of any bitcoins generated,” the news outlet detailed. Spotlite’s promotional material claims:

An up-front investment of $3,400 would generate earnings of $375 a month for two years by mining bitcoin.

However, the publication pointed out that critics have called this offering a scam, citing unachievable and misleading profit advertisement. Furthermore, the calculation does not take into account the mining difficulty that has been increasing.

Economist Saifedean Ammous was quoted asserting,”there is no way your magical Kodak miner will make the same $375 every month,” noting that anyone signing up for this service “would have made a loss on their investment.”

Claims of a steady income from bitcoin mining are often debunked. Each miner earns less from the shared pool of block rewards and mining fees as more people add their mining hashpower to the network. Since the beginning of the year, bitcoin miners’ revenue has declined from approximately $33 million per day to less than $10 million.

Mikail told the publication that “the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) had prevented the scheme from going ahead.” Instead of renting out mining capacity, his company will now “run its mining operation privately with equipment installed in Iceland,” he described, confirming that “the [original] plan has collapsed.”

What do you think of this Kodak-branded mining scheme? Let us know in the comments section below.